Are you tired of the same old warmers, games and activities? This is the place to be! This blog displays a collection of top creative ideas taken from the best sites and sources to spice up your classes and involve your students in fun activities dealing with different skills and grammar topics. Welcome aboard!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

Do you have some English language magazines and you don`t know what to do with them? Here is a great tip for you!

Level: upper intermediate or advanced

Skills: reading,speaking, listening and writing

Materials needed: a magazine and writing paper

Instructions:

Bring a magazine to class and show the students the picture of an article. Tell them that the objective of the activity is to guess the content of the article. Split the students into small groups. Display on the board some key questions to trigger their creativity (the teacher needs to prepare some interesting questions beforehand to help students give some direction to their stories). Give them some minutes to brainstorm all the ideas. Later, have groups report their ideas to the whole class. Provide students with a copy of the article and have them read it. As a follow-up, the class can briefly discuss the similarities and differences between their versions of the story and the actual one.

* If time allows, students can write their version of the story before they actually get to read the original story.

* Variation: instead of using a magazine, visit a news website and print a recent article or story.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Are you teaching vocabulary related to clothes? He is a very meaningful way to practice it!

Level: Beginners

Skills: Speaking + writing

Materials: Clothes of all styles such as dresses, bellbottoms, jackets, shorts, coats, skirts of all patterns and colors. It would also be good to bring some personal accessories such as rings, earrings, necklaces, bracelets, hats and caps.

HOW TO PLAY:

The teacher places the clothes on the wall or table. He/she asks students to choose clothes which would fit the following styles:

a)Hippie

b)Gypsy

c)Skater

d)Surfer

e)Conservative

f)Fancy

And so on.

The teacher should have cards with family members and verbs such as like, wear, hate, dislike, go, and put on.

Then, the teacher places the cards on the board and asks students to come up with conversations, using the Simple Present tense.

E.g.:Do you always wear baggy pants?

Yes, I do. I like to wear… every time I… or No, I don’t I sometimes wear…

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Materials: Laminated folders with double grids, vis-à-vis markers or a copy of two identical grids for each player.

OBJECT OF THE GAME: To be the first player to identify all three of the opponent’s words.

HOW TO PLAY:

Using the markers or pens to be used on the photocopied grids, each player writes one 3-letter word, one 4-letter word and one 5-letter word (they are the secret words) on top grid folder (horizontally and vertically only – not reversed or diagonally).

First player names a letter-number combination to specify a square on the grid.

The opponent repeats that letter and number (to clarify location) and must tell what letter is in that square or reply with a negative response. The first player then fills in the letter or, if no letter is in the location, draws a small dot to indicate that the space has been called out.

The players continue to alternate guessing locations until one player is able to identify all three of the opponent’s words.

TO MAKE SITE WORDS:

Two identical grids are glued inside of a file folder. Numbers and letters are written across the top and side of the grid so that locations can be pinpointed.

The folders are laminated so that students can write on them and erase after the game (optional if you are using a photocopied sheet of paper with the grids).

TIPS FOR SITE WORDS:

Use any letter-number combinations that you want for the pairs of folders.

Players must choose words that the opponents will know. This is a good activity to review the target vocabulary of a Unit (a glossary of a picture dictionary can also be used to help students locate the words). The teacher should also check spelling before the game begins.

The teacher should advise students that proper nouns should not be used.

Vânia Rodrigues has been an EFL teacher for 22 years, 17 of which at a Binational Center in Brazil, Casa Thomas Jefferson. She has been a teacher, a Course Supervisor and is currently a Deputy Academic Coordinator at CTJ. She holds an M.A in Applied Linguistics from the Universidade de Brasília. Her main interest relates to nonverbal teacher-student communication.

Vinicius Lemos has been an English teacher for 17 years. He holds a B.A in Letras-Inglês (English Language and Literature) from Universidade de Brasília (UnB) and has been an EFL teacher at Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasília, Brazil, for 11 years. He was a presenter at the 2010 TESOL Conference in Boston, USA ,at the 2011 ABS International Conference in Montevideo, Uruguay,at the 2012 TESOL Conference in Philadelphia ,USA and at the 2013 TESOL Conference in Dallas, USA.

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